Twisted Tales

What is it we all love about a good twist ending or the hairpin bends in the most dark and diabolical of filmic tales? The sense of the inevitable stripped back and laid bare, replaced instead by the breathless reeling of not having seen it all coming? Working it all out before our co-audience and revelling in the sense of being just that little bit cleverer than them, or as clever as the filmmakers and writers behind the nail biters at least. Whatever the reason there’s something unique about the best twisted tales, so much so they’ve even formed a sub-genre of their own, various lists on the net boasting the top twist or shock endings of all time. As a writer with a particular penchant for twist endings, sometimes darkly comic, sometimes moving, there’s nothing I love more than the sudden gasp or fist punching the arm of a chair I get out of my best friend when she’s test reading my screenplays, then I know I’ve got it right! Alongside the ‘twisters’ sit their not so distant cousin, tales such as ‘Secretary’ ‘Run Lola Run’ ‘Blue Velvet’ ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ ‘After Hours’ films with storylines, characters and events so clever, audacious, intricate and often absurd and cunning that, in the hands of master filmmakers who have the potential to manipulate their audiences with the alacrity of a magician, you cannot help but fall for their sweetly sickening poison and enjoy the sometimes dark and malicious fun.

The Usual Suspects

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist," says con man Kint (Kevin Spacey), drawing a comparison to the most enigmatic criminal of all time, Keyser Soze. Kint attempts to convince the feds that the mythic crime lord not only exists, but is also responsible for drawing Kint and his four partners into a multi-million dollar heist that ended with an explosion in San Pedro Harbor - leaving few survivors.